Thursday, October 29, 2015

Throwback Thursday Book Review: Oxford Whispers by Marion Croslydon

Some of you may know that I
originally had my own blog, Beauty but a Funny Girl, prior to joining
Bookish (now Bookish Lifestyle). I was thinking the other day about all
those reviews I left behind when I transferred and thought they should
get some love too - no matter how badly written and newbie they come
off! So I present to you: Throwback Thursday Reviews! Every once in a
while I'll post an old review from Beauty but a Funny Girl, unedited in
terms of content, with the exception of any spelling or grammatical
mistakes. It's definitely going to be fun and interesting to see how my
tastes and writing style have changed over the years!

Her fresh start at Oxford University is a brand new beginning. She finally has a chance to turn the page on her psychic powers and cumbersome voodoo heritage. Snakes, dolls, ghosts, and spirits: Farewell…

Not quite.

When the tragic lovers in a painting—the subject of her first history class—begin to haunt her, she must accept her gift before life imitates art. The lovers warn her against their own nemesis, a Puritan from the English Civil War. Unfortunately, said nemesis is now going all homicidal on Madison.

College becomes more complicated when she falls hard for Rupert Vance, a troubled aristocrat and descendant of one of the characters in the painting. With the spirit of a murderer after her, Madison realizes that her own first love may also be doomed…

(Goodreads)

Originally posted February 2, 2013on Beauty but a Funny Girl

I love when present day characters have to solve mysteries of the past.
While the story of Peter, Sarah, and Robert wasn't a mystery, per se,
our present day characters had to figure out what happened because there
wasn't an exact record. The who-did-it was pretty obvious, to me
anyway, but I liked uncovering the when and the why aspects.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the Madison and Rupert romance. I
wanted them together, yes, but it was a subtle longing. More like a "oh
good" than a "you get her!" thing. Part of me feels like to they
were forced together by the author and then made it work. Kind of like
an arranged marriage. The parents tell the children they will marry each
other and down the road the newlyweds eventually fall in love with one
another. Also, the first time the were intimate with each other (I use
intimate because their underwear stayed on), was kind of weird. It
was...odd. But I'm not a 22-year-old virgin who has an issue with the
undead, so who am I to judge?

I liked the plot and I was definitely hooked by what was going to
happen. I could NOT figure out who Peter was and that was great. I would
constantly go back and forth between this character and the next.
Sometimes I would think "It's so obviously so-and-so" and then something
else would happen and "Oh, it's not so-and-so, it's blah-blah!" And
then, "Nope, it's that-one. Definitely that-one" and I'd be right back
to so-and-so." I love when an author does this. I hate knowing right
away who the villain is when it's supposed to be a mystery. It's much
more fun to play the guessing game.

I enjoyed the fact that Croslydon would time jump between the present to
the 1650s with Sarah, Robert, and Peter. As readers we just weren't
finding out the knowledge through Madison, but through the past itself.
Personally, it lends a lot more to reading experience getting to see
these things than being told them third-party through another character.
I also like that "The Wounded Cavailer" by William Shakespeare Burton
is a real picture. It makes the plot a lot more interesting when fiction
and non-fiction combine in such a way.

Read this book. It kept me interested and I couldn't wait to get home
from work to continue on with Madison's story. I looking forward to
reading Oxford Shadows,
due out May 6, 2013. Not just because I get to revisit the characters
themselves, but hopefully Madison will have accepted her lot in life and
learned to work with it rather than against it. Also, it has to do with
the Tudors and I love my some royal scandal - especially when Henry
VIII is involved.